conflicts at home spawned or exacerbated by the war, from widespread protest to rampant anti-authoritarianism and even, Weatherman insisted, the breakdown of the family.98 Beyond declaring the Black Panthers to be the leaders of the American movement, Weatherman held that blacks could overthrow imperialism “alone if necessary.”99 Weatherman hoped, however, that blacks would be joined in doing so by white working-class youths. The immediate task of SDS was therefore to take the message of militant anti-imperialism to working-class youths in their own communities and build a “mass revolutionary movement” that, like the Chinese “Red Guards,” would “participate in violent and illegal struggle.”100
Though late-1960s radicals often invoked the notion of imperialism, they rarely defined it with any specificity and thereby avoided confronting its problems as an analytical frame. Principally, they were hard pressed to demonstrate a strongly economic—and hence narrowly imperialist—
motive for American intervention in Vietnam and other parts of the Third World. Neither the natural resources, nor labor, nor markets of poor countries like Vietnam were vital to the U.S. economy, in which exports and foreign investments played only secondary roles. In this light, the charge that the Vietnam War was fought essentially for the sake of corporate profits appears grossly exaggerated. Less credible still was Weatherman’s claim that every commodity in the United States was somehow the result of imperialist plunder.
The notion of imperialism fared far better, however, as a general description of U.S. power internationally. The United States, according to both the proponents and critics of its policies, sought to retain or expand its “spheres of influence.” Though individual countries like Cuba or Vietnam might fall to communism without any great impact on the domestic economy, the United States could scarcely afford to lose whole regions like Latin America or Southeast Asia. The economist Harry Magdoff defended the use of the term “imperialism” along precisely these lines:
[A]ttempts to explain isolated actions in “bookkeeping” terms make no sense. Small Latin American countries that produce relatively little profit are important in United States policy-making because control over all of Latin America is important. . . . [T]he killing and destruction in Vietnam 52
“Agents of Necessity”
and the expenditure of vast sums of money are not balanced in the eyes of U.S. policy makers against profitable business opportunities in Vietnam; rather they are weighed according to the judgment of military and political leaders on what is necessary to control and influence Asia.101
The other side of this image of American power was the sense that many Third World populations rising in concert could effectively erode the American empire. Russell Neufeld, reflecting on the optimism he felt in the late 1960s, pointed to just this sense. Raised in a progressive Jewish household in Long Island, he became an activist at a very early age (he was twelve at the time of his first march). A regional director of “Vietnam Summer” in 1967, Neufeld found himself attracted by 1969 to Weatherman’s internationalism and militant approach to protesting the war. As the American war effort faltered and left-wing movements worldwide gained strength, he came to think “that the Vietnamese revolution would be decisive” in a process of global revolution—a position akin to “believing in the domino theory, but thinking it was good.”102 Weatherman’s task was to help topple the last (and first) great domino: the United States itself.
Fighting imperialism, American activists were able to transcend their national identities and affiliate with a movement of world-historical importance and great moral force. In implying the possibility of global emancipation, anti-imperialism spoke powerfully to the utopian longings at the heart of the
Though late-1960s radicals often invoked the notion of imperialism, they rarely defined it with any specificity and thereby avoided confronting its problems as an analytical frame. Principally, they were hard pressed to demonstrate a strongly economic—and hence narrowly imperialist—
motive for American intervention in Vietnam and other parts of the Third World. Neither the natural resources, nor labor, nor markets of poor countries like Vietnam were vital to the U.S. economy, in which exports and foreign investments played only secondary roles. In this light, the charge that the Vietnam War was fought essentially for the sake of corporate profits appears grossly exaggerated. Less credible still was Weatherman’s claim that every commodity in the United States was somehow the result of imperialist plunder.
The notion of imperialism fared far better, however, as a general description of U.S. power internationally. The United States, according to both the proponents and critics of its policies, sought to retain or expand its “spheres of influence.” Though individual countries like Cuba or Vietnam might fall to communism without any great impact on the domestic economy, the United States could scarcely afford to lose whole regions like Latin America or Southeast Asia. The economist Harry Magdoff defended the use of the term “imperialism” along precisely these lines:
[A]ttempts to explain isolated actions in “bookkeeping” terms make no sense. Small Latin American countries that produce relatively little profit are important in United States policy-making because control over all of Latin America is important. . . . [T]he killing and destruction in Vietnam 52
“Agents of Necessity”
and the expenditure of vast sums of money are not balanced in the eyes of U.S. policy makers against profitable business opportunities in Vietnam; rather they are weighed according to the judgment of military and political leaders on what is necessary to control and influence Asia.101
The other side of this image of American power was the sense that many Third World populations rising in concert could effectively erode the American empire. Russell Neufeld, reflecting on the optimism he felt in the late 1960s, pointed to just this sense. Raised in a progressive Jewish household in Long Island, he became an activist at a very early age (he was twelve at the time of his first march). A regional director of “Vietnam Summer” in 1967, Neufeld found himself attracted by 1969 to Weatherman’s internationalism and militant approach to protesting the war. As the American war effort faltered and left-wing movements worldwide gained strength, he came to think “that the Vietnamese revolution would be decisive” in a process of global revolution—a position akin to “believing in the domino theory, but thinking it was good.”102 Weatherman’s task was to help topple the last (and first) great domino: the United States itself.
Fighting imperialism, American activists were able to transcend their national identities and affiliate with a movement of world-historical importance and great moral force. In implying the possibility of global emancipation, anti-imperialism spoke powerfully to the utopian longings at the heart of the
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